Episode #0 Welcome to THE DANKNESS, a new cryptocast with Sickles + Artnome highlighting the artists and collectors behind some of the most beloved CryptoArt creations. In the inaugural episode, we share our hopes for this podcast. Born out of the most recent bull market, we want to get back to relaxing, being creative, letting our hair down, and having some fun again! Many of us have a hangover from the ultra manic, speculation driven madness of 2021-2022. The Dankness is designed to cure that hangover with an offering that is intentionally experimental and designed to show the more human side of the many amazing participants in the NFT community. While some of you may know us, episode zero is designed to give a bit of our background and to introduce ourselves to those of you we haven’t met yet (welcome!). Artnome gives his life story and explains how it all leads up to being an early part of CryptoArt, NFTs, and this podcast! Sickles shares a bit about his background as a documentary film maker and what it has been like to spend the last two years interviewing hundreds of the most talented and interesting people in the NFT community for what will become “the” definitive documentary on this culture. We end the episode by returning to a question Artnome first asked in early 2018… What is CryptoArt? To keep up with the podcast follow @thedanknessxyz on Twitter.Sickles is on Twitter at @dan_sickles and you can keep up with his amazing documentary at @newherexyz as it evolves. Artnome lives on Twitter at @artnome and his company ClubNFT, which helps collectors protect and discover NFTs, is at @club_nft. But wait, theres more! Every episode comes with a free collectible audio/visual NFT created through a collaboration of our cohost and audio wizard Asa Stella (@stellaphonic) and visionary digital artist FFFFlood (@fffflood) on Async art. We call them “Danktones” and they will be available as an open edition for a limited time after each episode.
The legendary Josie Bellini joins as our guest for the very first episode of the Dankness! Josie is well known for her early genre-defining work as a CryptoArtist including such iconic pieces as her 2018 paintings Filter and Acceptance. Josie is also known to NFT collectors around the world as the dynamic and innovative CEO and Founder behind the wildly successful CyberBrokers - A first-of-its-kind digital art collectibles ecosystem centered around 10,001 unique and on-chain NFTs. In this episode, Josie and Artnome get into a debate about the metaverse (is it cool or does it kinda suck?) and find common ground in their atypical religious upbringings. Josie later opens up sharing a really heartfelt story about one of her community members (our favorite part of this episode). She’s as real as it gets, and that is why we’ve picked her out of 8 billion people in the world to be our first guest! As a bonus, the legendary ROBNESS joins us to share a deep cut about the origins of trash art. One of the only artists involved in the CryptoArt movement since its inception, ROBNESS has worked across chains and genres since the early Rare Pepe days. DOES HE SPEAK IN ALL CAPS? Listen to find out. You should absolutely follow our guests on Twitter at @josiebellini and @ROBNESSOFFICIAL. To keep up with the podcast follow @thedanknessxyz on Twitter. Sickles is on Twitter at @dan_sickles and you can keep up with his amazing documentary at @newherexyz as it evolves. Artnome lives on Twitter at @artnome and his company ClubNFT, which helps collectors protect and discover NFTs, is at @club_nft. But wait, theres more! Every episode comes with a free collectible audio/visual NFT created through a collaboration of our cohost and audio wizard Asa Stella (@stellaphonic) and visionary digital artist FFFFlood (@fffflood) on Async art. We call them “Danktones” and they will be available as an open edition for a limited time after each episode.
In this episode we chat with the dankest artist we know, our good friend Sarah Zucker! Sarah, known by many as “The Sarah Show” is a proud psychonaut, former Jeopardy champion, and exceptionally accomplished artist. Her deeply personal work “merges the gorgeous and grotesque through humor, psychedelia, mysticism, and the interplay of cutting edge and obsolete technologies.” What we love most about Sarah is that her work is equally at home on Giphy (where it has been viewed billions of times) as it is in world renowned art museums. Sarah’s brilliant weirdness and unique vision speaks to us all! We cover a lot of territory with Sarah from her participation in “Peer to Peer”, an exhibition at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, to to her first psychedelic experience. You may know and love Sarah’s work as an artist but here is your chance to get to know her better as the amazing person she is. Sarah is our favorite “one of one” and we’re thrilled to have her on the show! Before we jump into the interview with Sarah, Sickles and Artnome ask what the impact of the FTX collapse will be on the CryptoArt community and NFT market. Hint… not your storage, not your NFT! You should absolutely follow Sarah Zucker at @thesarahshow and you can learn more about her super dank work on her website sarahzucker.com. To keep up with the podcast follow @thedanknessxyz on Twitter. Sickles is on Twitter at @dan_sickles and you can keep up with his amazing documentary at @newherexyz as it evolves. Artnome lives on Twitter at @artnome and his company ClubNFT, which helps collectors protect and discover NFTs, is at @club_nft. But wait, theres more! Every episode comes with a free collectible audio/visual NFT created through a collaboration of our cohost and audio wizard Asa Stella (@stellaphonic) and visionary digital artist FFFFlood (@fffflood) on Async art. We call them “Danktones” and they will be available as an open edition for a limited time after each episode.
On this episode we are honored to speak with artist and cryptoart community activist Matt Kane! Matt is a self taught programmer who came to coding as a way to better actualize his artist visions through his own custom software. His work features dense multi-layered works that bring to mind complex, intricate, mesh-like, webs or networks. Matt is perhaps best known for his tremendously successful 2021 Art Blocks project “Gazers.” With Gazers, the works respond to the cycles of the moon and are perpetually shifting, making these works collectors want to live with and regularly revisit. We discuss Matt’s journey from “lurker” to leader in the Cryptoart movement. Matt is candid about early successes and struggles to make it as an artist and the positive opportunities cryptoart opened up for him. We learn where his interest in currency as a theme in his art stems from and his discovery of crypto. He also shares his love of art history and how analog painters like Monet serve as inspiration for his digital works. Matt shares an important story detailing how he collaborated with other important members of the crypto art community in 2020 to successfully lobby for a minimum secondary resale standard for artists. The Dankness is grateful to Matt for sharing so much of his story, it’s a special and insightful conversation, and we hope you find it as engaging as we did! You should absolutely follow Matt Kane at @MattKaneArtist and you can learn more about his unique and engaging body of work on his website mattkane.com. To keep up with the podcast follow @thedanknessxyz on Twitter. Sickles is on Twitter at @dan_sickles and you can keep up with his amazing documentary at @newherexyz as it evolves. Artnome lives on Twitter at @artnome and his company ClubNFT, which helps collectors protect and discover NFTs, is at @club_nft. But wait, theres more! Every episode comes with a free collectible audio/visual NFT created through a collaboration of our cohost and audio wizard Asa Stella (@stellaphonic) and visionary digital artist FFFFlood (@fffflood) on Async art. We call them “Danktones” and they will be available as an open edition for a limited time after each episode.
Welcome back to The Dankness, your go-to destination for all things crypto art and culture. This week, we've got a special guest that's going to blow your mind. Carlos Marcial is an amazing 3D artist, known for his infinitely looping masterpieces that tackle themes of governmental power and corruption. His work celebrates decentralized currency and crypto culture and it often contains reference to 20th-century art and artists. In this episode, Carlos opens up about balancing his art career with the responsibilities of being a husband and a dad, and how crypto art has opened up doors for him that were previously closed in the traditional art world. He's also teaching himself to code and has a new generative art project in the works that's sure to make waves 🐚 Carlos is not one to shy away from speaking his mind, and his straightforward and unapologetic approach to art and life is what makes him one of our favorite people in the digital art space. You need to follow Carlos at @carlosmarcialt on Twitter and you can find some of his best work on SuperRare at superrare.com/carlosmarcial. Before we dive in with Carlos, Dan and Jason talk Meme Wars, what it’s like to make a documentary about crypto art, and the influx of prompt-driven AI art. So buckle up, because this episode is going to be a wild ride! To keep up with the podcast follow @thedanknessxyz on Twitter. Sickles is on Twitter at @dan_sickles and you can keep up with his amazing documentary at @newherexyz as it evolves. Artnome lives on Twitter at @artnome and his company ClubNFT, which helps collectors protect and discover NFTs, is at @club_nft. But wait, theres more! Every episode comes with a free collectible audio/visual NFT created through a collaboration of our bandleader and audio wizard Stella (@stellaphonic) and visionary digital artist FFFFlood (@fffflood) on Async art. We call them “Danktones” and they will be available as an open edition for a limited time after each episode. Head on over to thedankness.xyz to find out more.